God is not the Author of Sin

• Sin is disobedience to God and encompasses anything that is not according to his will. It may include acts of sin or failing to do what is right. It is fulfilling self-will as opposed to God’s will.

  1 John 3:4, Romans 3:23, James 4:17

• The record in Genesis chapters 1 to 3 is literal and there is nothing to suggest the record is allegorical in any way. If the record is not literal then God is the author of sin because he would have created Adam and Eve with sinful lusts, which he did not.

• God created Adam and Eve in a “very good” state for the purpose of being like him. They were neither mortal nor immortal which is evident by the fact that they were later condemned to mortality and denied access to immortality by eating of the Tree of Life. In their "very good" state they were capable of death but not subject to it. They were upright and innocent with a natural disposition to obey, but were capable of sin by temptation from an external source. God did not create mankind with sinful lusts within and a bias or tendency to sin. Mankind’s natural sinful bias and tendencies originated from the world, not from God.

  Genesis 1:26-27, 31, 3:19, 22-24, Ecclesiastes 7:29, 1 John 2:15-17

• Being created in a “very good” state, Adam and Eve were in harmony with God. To develop his likeness in them, God placed Adam and Eve on probation in the Garden of Eden with a simple law to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The consequence of disobedience would be death by mortality. The consequence of sin is death because sin is not fulfilling the purpose for which God created mankind and gave them life.

  Genesis 2:16-17, 3:2-3, 1 John 1:5-7, 3:3, 16, John 13:34, 1 Peter 1:15-16, Luke 6:36, Ephesians 4:32, Romans 6:23

• There is no command recorded concerning the Tree of Life but it is clear that they did not eat of it as doing so would have made them immortal as soon as they ate of it.

  Genesis 3: 22-24

The Temptation of Adam and Eve

• Before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve were not tempted of their own lusts from within as humankind is now. They were only able to be tempted externally by an outside source.

  Mark 7:20-23, James 1:13-15, Romans 7:15-25

• Eve was initially tempted by the serpent who was an animal created by God which was amoral and could not discern between right and wrong. The serpent’s lie was not deliberate or malicious but an expression of his animal mind.

  Genesis 3:1, John 8:44 (the serpent is called the devil or diabolos because he told the first lie)

• When the serpent suggested Eve eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, her disposition was one of implicit obedience and she spoke the truth.

  Genesis 3:2-3

• Eve was deceived by the serpent’s lie that she would not die from eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Her legitimate God-given desires to eat what was provided by God and be equal to the angels were corrupted into deceitful lusts by her belief in the serpent’s lie. It was only after being deceived and adopting the serpent’s reasoning that she experienced temptation, of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

  Genesis 2:9, Luke 20:35-36, Genesis 3:6, 13, 2 Corinthians 11:3

• Eve became Adam’s external tempter and enticed him with her words to eat it as she gave it to him. Adam was not deceived by the serpent like Eve was, he was tempted by Eve and only experienced lust and temptation to eat it after being enticed by her words when she gave him the fruit to eat it.

  Genesis 3:6, 12, 17, Ephesians 4:22, 1 Timothy 2:14

Changes in Human Nature After the Entrance of Sin

• Sin and death entered the world by Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s law and was not in the world prior to that. God is not the author of sin and did not create Adam and Eve with sinful lusts or impulses to sin within. This bias to sin is a characteristic of mortality that resulted from the first sin.

  Romans 5:12-15, 19, 6:23, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 1 John 2:15, Ecclesiastes 7:29

• As soon as Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they knew they were naked and experienced shame and fear.

  Genesis 3:7-10

• God sentenced them to sorrow and death by mortality, which was the penalty for disobeying his law. This caused a physiological change in the bodies of Adam and Eve to make them mortal. They were not mortal or subject to death before God’s sentence.

  Genesis 3:9-19

• The impulses and tendency to sin now became a natural bias in human nature that had not existed when God created Adam and Eve. We are tempted within of our own lusts and experience an inner conflict between a desire to do good or to sin, which Adam and Eve did not experience until they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

  Mark 7:20-23, James 1:13-15, Romans 7:15-25, 1 John 2:15, Isaiah 55:8, Jeremiah 17:9, 10:23, Job 14:1

• Adam and Eve were no longer “very good”. Mortal human nature, resulting from its condemnation to mortality because of sin, has no good in itself and is sinful and corrupt. Mortal human nature is sometimes called “sin” by the figure of speech of metonymy because the impulses and tendencies to sin come from within human nature. For the same reason, it is also called “sinful flesh” or “flesh of sin”.

  This is different to the “very good” state in which God created Adam and Eve. Mankind is defiled by what comes from within out of the heart. Because of this bias to sin in mortal human nature, it is described in the Bible as sinful and unclean. Mortal human nature cannot be described as clean or undefiled.

  Romans 7:18, 17, 20, 8:3, Luke 18:19, Galatians 6:8, Ephesians 4:22, Genesis 1:31, 6:5, Ecclesiastes 7:29, 1 John 2:15, Philippians 3:21, 1 Corinthians 15:53, Job 14:1-4, 15:14, 25:4, Matthew 15:10-20, Mark 7:14-23

• All of Adam and Eve’s descendants have inherited this mortality with its bias and tendency to sin from them. No guilt for Adam and Eve’s sin is passed on or attributed to their offspring.

  Romans 5:12-14, 7:23-24, 8:10, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 2 Corinthians 1:9, James 1:14-15, 4:7, Ephesians 2:2, 1 John 2:15

• It is impossible for mankind not to sin.

  Romans 6:23, 3:10, 23